Thursday, March 13
FANCY DRINKS: Just two more Artini feature nights before the big event. Tonight’s is at Jack Rose, where mixologists Nick Lowe and Trevor Frye will stir up cocktails inspired by Robert William Vonnoh’s “Notre Dame de Paris.” Free. 6:30 PM.
IMPROV: The Washington Improv Theater presents FIST, which is an acronym for the very aggressive-sounding Fighting Improv Smackdown Tournament. Basically, a whole bunch of local improv teams go head to head in a three-on-three March Madness-style tournament, and the only winners are people who like to laugh (and also the improv troupe that wins, I GUESS). Tonight is the first round. Tickets are $12 online or $14 at the door. 7:30 PM.
FILM: Someone made a documentary about DC’s tech startup scene, because of course. Startupland screens at E Street Cinema with a pre-show talk from Steve Case, who helped found AOL. Let’s hope you’ve already got some angel investors, because admission ain’t cheap for a ticket that doesn’t include any drinks (which you can buy separately). Tickets ($20) are available online. 9 PM.
Friday, March 14
STORYTELLING: Check out the Story League All-Stars Tournament, featuring the winners of the league’s Dunces, Nightmares, Debauchery, and My Ex nights. All-Stars features the best of the best, so you’ll see fewer cringeworthy stories and instead can focus on laughing and/or feeling emotional, not judging. Tickets ($15) are available online. 7 PM.
COMEDY: The Dunes is having an Ides of March party a day before the Ides of March, which is okay because it runs past midnight. The night features four local comedians, two bands, and a deejay. Free. 8 PM.
ART: The Torpedo Factory host P-Art-y, featuring make-your-own-art stations, look-at-other-people’s-art stations, a chicken wing-eating competition, pizza, and lots of Port City beer. Tickets ($15) are available online. 7 PM.
Saturday, March 15
VARIETY: Black Cat hosts And I Am Not Lying, which is perhaps the hipster-est thing DC will ever have. You’ve got live music from the Boston Typewriter Orchestra, which uses “rhythmic typewriters” to make music, plus standup comedy, storytelling, and Arrested Development-themed burlesque, which is a thing. Tickets ($12) are available online. 9 PM.
ART: The only thing better than free art in a museum is free art in public, because, hey, fewer tourists. (Re)activate takes over an empty parking lot at the corner of Ninth and U streets, Northwest, for a night of video art installations and performance art. The whole thing is an attempt to get you to reconsider how empty space is used in cities. Free. 6:30 PM.
ST. PATRICK’S DAY: Why wait until after you normally wake up to start drinking? It’s (sort of) St. Patrick’s Day! Madhatter hosts a Kegs & Eggs brunch, featuring $2 green beer, $3 mixed drinks, $4 shamrock shots, $5 Guinness, and $7 Irish Car Bombs. There’ll be live music, a brunch buffet, glowsticks, a deejay, a bagpiper, a live band, and other various festive shenanigans. Tickets ($25) are available online. 11 AM.
BAR CRAWL: If 11 is too early for your tastes, you can wait three hours and head to Clarendon for the Shamrock Crawl. You probably know what this entails, but if you don’t, you’ll get green beads, $2 cheese pizza slices, and drink specials at 15 Clarendon bars (Mister Days, Clarendon Ballroom, Hard Times, Velocity Five, Spider Kelly’s, Mad Rose, Whitlow’s, etc.). Things last for seven hours, and then it’s time to drink unofficially. Please eat lots of pizza and drink lots of water, everyone. Tickets are $15 online or $20 at the door. 2 PM.
Sunday, March 16
DANCE: U Street Music Hall is turning four and is celebrating much like your usual four-year-old: with a concert of loud dance music. The special guests are still TBA, but you can bet you won’t be disappointed. Tickets ($15) are available online. 10 PM.
THEATER: The Kennedy Center’s World Stages international theater festival features performances from theater groups from around the world. Sunday, you’ve got three options: a Chilean troupe performs La Muerte y La Doncella (Death and the Maiden) at 1:30, the National Theatre of Iceland performs Harmsaga at 2, and Mexico’s Tapioca Inn performs Incendios at 7:30. Tickets ($29 per play) are available online.
Know of something cool going on around town? E-mail Jason Koebler at jasontpkoebler@gmail.com, or find him on Twitter.
